Plans
by Botosphere
Summary: DotM 'verse, by Eowyn77. The conversation between Sam and Optimus on the launch pad and its consequences, as seen through Optimus' optics.
1. My Friend

Author's Note: Firstly, this has a pretty big spoiler for DotM. If you haven't seen the movie yet, please hit the little "back" button because I don't want to be responsible for ruining it for anyone. :)

Secondly, as noted in our profile, Dark of the Moon fics will be an AU from most of the Botosphere, especially the Kinship Trilogy and _Introductions:Annabelle_. However, while watching the movie, this scene jumped out at me and I had to share it from Optimus' perspective. My retelling of it includes the brother-bond developed in the Kinship Trilogy, but it is otherwise an AU for our fanon.

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><p>I'd felt Sam's desperation and terror last night, but when I had reached out over our brother bond, he had blocked it (as best he could). Being so young and new to the bond even now, he could never completely shut me out if I were determined to break through, though I'd learned my lesson with Megatron and would never again provoke a bond brother that way.<p>

His emotions were still in turmoil as he limped toward me on the launchpad - fear and grief with guilt all but drowning out the rest. I briefly scanned him, worried he'd been hurt, and what I found there froze my spark. Slamming the door shut on our bond, I looked away. I could not let him in, not when he stood before me with an unfamiliar piece of Cybertronian technology on his wrist. Taken with his guilt-laced anguish, the drone Decepticon watch made his intentions clear.

Sam planned to betray me.

I took small comfort in the fact that he felt driven to it. My brother's love had not grown cold like Megatron's nor was his treachery calculated and long-planned like Sentinel's. This betrayal was born of desperation and it pained him. It was still a betrayal.

"Optimus..." he began

I cut him off. "What your leaders say is true," I declared, already placing a wedge between us, between Autobot and human. "This was all my fault." My mentor, my brothers, my losses, my fault. "I told them whom to trust." I trusted you, Sam. "I was so wrong."

"That doesn't make it your fault, it just makes you human for a change." My brother reached out to me over the bond without meaning to and probably without realizing it.

I would not yield.

Nor could I simply walk away. Even as I abandoned him, I could not deny our bond. "Remember this: you may lose faith in us, but never in yourselves." _You are a Prime_,I willed him to remember.

Power surged through the disguised watch, and I strengthened the block between us as I turned my back on my brother. My spark ached to comfort him, but I had no doubt that our every word was being overheard. I had no idea how deeply the Decepticons had ensnared him, so I didn't dare trust him with anything over the bond, either.

Struggling, all but choking the words, he begged, "I need to know how you're going to fight back. I know there's a strategy. I know you're...you're coming back with reinforcements or something. I know there's a plan..." His gaze darted to his fellow humans before he shoved against my will with all his strength. "You can tell me. No other human will ever know."

'No human,' not 'no one.' There was a warning in that single word, proof that he was not completely turned - or proof that he was trying to regain my trust in order to gather intelligence. Clamping down even harder on the bond, I answered, "There is no plan." He'd lied to me first; I only repaid him in kind.

Disappointment - with himself, with me - flashed in Sam's eyes. "If we just do what they want, how are we ever going to live with ourselves?"

That question was too close to the truth, and whatever his true intent, he had warned me. So I told one more lie that would hopefully protect him and perhaps let his heart know the rest was not true, either. "You are my friend, Sam…"

It was a slap to the face to call him a friend, and he blinked against the words. I knew how they would sting. I did not kneel, either, as I usually would have when speaking to my brother.

"...and you always will be." That, also, was too close and could put him in even greater danger. Realizing I had crouched closer without meaning to, I straightened and looked away, building the wall and the pain between us thicker and higher. "But your leaders have spoken. From here, the fight will be your own."

I forced myself to turn and walk away. We were abandoning Earth to the Decepticons, if only for a short time, and it was a distinct possibility that I would not see him alive again, that I would lose my bond-brother.

He had betrayed me, I reminded myself, and it helped to steel my resolve. I only hoped we could someday make this right.

My gaze fell on Bumblebee, anguish and confusion in his optics as he approached. /Scan his watch/ I sent to my unfailingly faithful friend. Then aloud, "Make it short."

The way his antenna fell back and his doorwings drooped told me he understood.

"We're loading up," I ordered, not quite keeping the grief from my voice.

The plan was to show the humans they needed us. The plan was to turn the tables on the Decepticons and give ourselves the advantage of surprise, our only tactical hope. The plan was to place my brother in the line of fire with no protection or aid and merely hope it was his fate to survive. As I climbed aboard the lie we spent the last two years building, I knew his unplanned betrayal was nothing compared to mine.


	2. Needs of the Many

Author's note: You have demanding reviewers and Albion North's sad puppy-dog eyes to thank for the following chapters. :) I have been amazed by the reception this fic has received, and I hope that what follows won't be a disappointment. A thousand thanks to everyone who has reviewed, alerted, or favorited this fic! In this case, your encouragement literally kept me writing. :)

For the record, in this fic, Dino is Dino and Que is Que; I'm not going to do Bay's retconning for him.

A couple of notes for anyone who hasn't read _Kinship_: In the absence of a name in the movies for Optimus' flight mode, I've been calling it "Blackbird armor" in honor of Jetfire for the last couple of years. Also, in my little fanon, Optimus and Sam share a brother bond because all Primes are brothers and Sam's a Prime due to that little detail of him activating and using the Matrix in RotF. For the most part, feelings can be shared, but not thoughts. Just so no one gets confused. :)

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><p>We took our places in the booster, spreading out and securely strapping ourselves in and waiting for the countdown and liftoff. The Wreckers were good at what they did and, to keep the shuttle balanced and stable, had precisely recalculated our weight distribution after the loss of Ironhide. That was another wound that pierced deep.<p>

The waiting left me too much time to brood. Bumblebee was at my right now, standing where the grizzled old warrior once had. Sam and I shared a brother bond, but he was 'Bee's charge and best friend. I could only imagine what the scout would think of letting our human remain a captive of the Deceptions.

As if reading my mind, he looked up at me, his earnest blue optics holding mine. /He did it because he had to. He would never willingly side with the Decepticons. He's trying to protect someone else, maybe even a lot of someones, because I know he wouldn't turn 'con just to save his own life. I'm sure of it./

/I know./ There was a time I would have said the same about Sentinel. Maybe my elder Prime felt compelled, too, and for similar reasons. He had gone horribly wrong because of it, though. We all had.

/You did it because _you_had to/ he added, consolation in his tone.

That was both the boon and the drawback of good scouts – they saw _everything_.

/Just like leaving me with Sector Seven, you were protecting all the humans there, and Sam most of all. That drone might have killed him plus whoever he was trying to protect if we let on that we knew. It would have destroyed our battle plans and our only hope to fight back if we had stayed. He never would have survived splashdown if he came with us. What else could you do?/

There was pleading in his optics now, and I saw myself reflected there. /You could have done nothing more for him, Bumblebee. You and I both were as captive as him./

Understanding flickered once across his solemn expression before he nodded and looked away.

I offlined my optics and shut out the nervous murmurs between Que and Ratchet as the countdown began. If we were going to truly fake our deaths, there was one last lie to tell.

Raw, barely-controlled power roared in our audials as the primitive human technology carried us toward the stars. I now understood my former mentor, understood him as I understood my former brother's spark, and there was no mercy in him. It would be moments now, at most, before a Seeker among those stars would find us. The Wreckers had chosen the first booster as our escape pod but even then we weren't sure if we would detach from the Xantium before Starscream shot us out of the sky. Like so many desperate choices we made, it was a calculated risk.

Lifeless metal groaned and the shuttle released us. Then we were free-falling, rushing toward an ocean below that would feel as hard as stone at this speed. Instinctively, I wanted to curl into a protective cometary form, but there was no room, and even if there were, I would have sent the booster flipping end over end, potentially killing us all. With great effort, I disengaged my battle protocols and focused inward again.

Long, anxious seconds passed and then, over our private comm, Bumblebee sent me a single word: /Now./

The Xantium was hit. I tore off the block that had kept Sam at bay and unleashed memories I had locked away and buried deep. Even after so long, the wound had not fully healed. I drenched Sam in the living, excruciating pain of a severed brother bond. What Megatron had inflicted on me, I now relived for Sam's sake. Spark-searing, soul-cutting agony _writhed _from me to coil around him. He had no battle protocols to buffer this, and his human soul raised the only defense it had – shock. Loss tore through the core of my being, and he was numb under the grinding weight of it. The dizzying terror of free fall; the horror of a severed bond. Disbelief. Piercing grief. Denial. Smothering regret. Strut-deep betrayal. His own sense of loss with a flavor of its own.

The Atlantic engulfed us, and I blocked the bond completely. I was alone again in my own spark, desperately locking my memories back into their quarantined place in my processors.

I was grateful for the water, then. My core temperature had risen through it all, but my struggles were my own and I didn't want stuttering fans broadcasting what I had just endured. I had forgotten – as best I could – how it felt to lose a bond brother. It was one of the few things I had refused to share with Sam until now, but it cast both his betrayal and mine in a clearer light. As the throbbing pain slowly receded, I took comfort in the fact that, unlike with Megatron, I still shared a bond with Sam. This rift _could_ be healed, if he would forgive _my_betrayal. If he survived. If he could forgive the cruelty of this lie.

_Let it be a lie_, I silently pled. _Let it not be a foreshadow._

We continued to sink until we struck the ocean floor. When the escape hatch wouldn't open, I activated my energon sword, slicing through the harness binding me and cutting a hole though the booster wall. My Autobots followed me out, some with greater ease than others. Dino and Sideswipe moved with vicious grace in any environment and surged like sharks through the water. Bumblebee climbed out easily enough, but he was slowed down by Que as he helped the old inventor push free of the booster. The Wreckers took to seawater like they took to anything – with a calculating optic, grim determination, ready violence, and a rough sense of humor. They were currently kicking the living slag out of their own creation, cursing the hatch that had failed to give way when it was supposed to. Ratchet was struggling, his dense, solid build weighing him down. Wheelie and Brains were taunting him by running circles around him – backwards.

And Ironhide…I thought of him automatically as I mentally reviewed my troops. It was one more sorrow to add to the grief of this day. I could almost hear him glitching about, of all ironies, how the salt water would give him rust.

_Another time, old friend,_ I promised him. _There are living mechs to attend to, but your kin will grieve you when we can._

With my Blackbird armor, I could have gone on ahead and begun the search for Sam. Instead, I lead us on foot toward the shore. We would wait for night and make landfall in the dark.

Stealth and surprise were our greatest allies now and so I continued to tightly block my end of the bond. Sam was not Cybertronian and had no experience with other bond-kin. It was my gamble and hope that he would assume the worst after experiencing my remembered loss when the Xantium was destroyed. Flickers of his feelings brushed against the block, and I let down my defenses just enough to sense them. Despair, grief, numb shock…and the steely courage that marked him as a Prime.

In the dark water, I met Bumblebee's expectant optics and sent, /He believes we are dead./

/He's as safe as we can make him from here, then./

/Yes./

If his fellow humans looked to him in doubt, Sam (who could never convincingly lie) would say with surety that we were dead. And if the whole world believed us dead, then he was just another human among millions. Unlike last time, no one would look for him specifically; at least, that was our slim hope. Anonymity was his best defense now. I knew the enemies Earth was facing, and until we could bring the battle to the Decepticons, hiding would be the safest thing for all humans. In my spark, though, I knew it was asking too much of him to expect him to do the safe thing. He was, after all, a Prime.

…

Once ashore, we transformed and began the hunt for Sam. He was distant enough now that I couldn't find him without fully opening the bond. I vowed I would not block it again. I _would _protect him, I _would _make this right if he'd only let me, but before this battle was over, we Primes would need to make a stand. Despite whatever his fellow humans might be led to believe, I knew he was fated to be at the center of our battles here on Earth. Where he was, I would also be, and that was the best I could do for now. Six billion lives hung in the balance, and Sam and I were only two. The need to heal our bond could wait.


	3. Kill Them All

With the rest of the world, we continually scanned the news broadcasts and watched as most of Chicago was encircled and claimed by the Decepticons. As I'd feared but expected, my brother bond was leading me to the heart of the destruction. It was more than 1200 miles from our launch site in Florida to Chicago, and at legal speeds, the journey would take 18 hours. Needless to say, we didn't limit ourselves to legal speeds.

Like waiting in the booster, the long hours of driving gave me unwelcome time to brood. It was true, as I'd told Bumblebee, that there was nothing Sam or I could have done differently. Still, I had abandoned my bond-brother. I had turned my back on him when he was in pain. Knowing he was under the power of the Decepticons, I had walked away.

Even if his life was the only one endangered, would I truly have wanted him to die rather than betray me? Even if the unthinkable happened and his treachery was willing, would I still wish him dead, wish to sever my bond with him as Megatron had severed his bond with me?

My spark flared with in an emphatic 'no.' My bond with Megatron was broken well before the War began, and with the Matrix long-lost, my mentor and I shared no bond. Sam was the first of my bond-kin to turn traitor on me in all these long eons of endless conflict. That the mech who founded the Autobots would betray us was almost as processor-boggling. It surprised me that there was any new war-wound of the spark left for me to endure, and here were two in as many days. Perhaps that was why I reacted so strongly…and wrongly.

Sam was my _brother_. To sever my bond with him would make me no better than Megatron. It would make me far worse because my reasons would be so…petty. And the thought of him dying was as unbearable as the memory of a severed bond. For whatever reason, he had warned me. He was my brother, then and still. Even if he did betray me, he was not a traitor.

But what about Sentinel?

All Primes are brothers, and if he had touched the Matrix when I offered it to him, we would have shared a bond, too. Would I have severed that bond with him? I didn't know the answer to that, and I wasn't sure that I wanted to. I was grateful that I didn't need to face that choice; he was not and never would be my brother. His treachery had ensured that.

But still he had been _my _Prime. He had inspired, taught, and led us though a significant portion of the War. If we came face-to-face in battle, as it seemed likely we would, what would I do?

Unlike human militaries and the Decepticons, we Autobots left deserters alone. Under Sentinel's leadership, they were not hunted, but they were not be defended, either. Prowl questioned the wisdom of that policy, but Sentinel explained that the Decepticons would do the enforcing for us. Megatron executed captured Autobots in ways far more brutal than we would ever use, even if those they captured were deserters. Very few Autobots deserted, and I continued that policy after Sentinel was lost.

Traitors were a different story. Sentinel's policy was that they would be hunted down and brought to justice. Logistically, however, the executions were usually performed in the course of battle. It was the easier and surer way to know the defectors' true allegiance. Sunstreaker and Sideswipe were second only to Ironhide in their ability to find and kill those who had betrayed the Autobots, even in the most chaotic of firefights. Those traitors who did not march into battle were still brought to justice in the quarters they thought were safe. Sentinel commissioned Jazz to supervise those executions. Whatever others might say about such enforcement, I knew for a fact that Jazz was far quicker and kinder than the twins were. After Sentinel was gone, though, I discontinued that policy, partly because we were being driven back and could not spare the resources to hunt down those who had betrayed us and kill them all. Jazz still took the initiative from time to time, though, when he felt it strategically necessary or the betrayal hit too close to home, as the humans say. Mirage likewise made the occasional foray if his aristocratic sense of honor demanded it.

And now Sentinel Prime himself was a traitor.

Ironhide was gone, as was Jazz. If Sunstreaker were here, if he and Sideswipe were fighting side-by-side, there was a slim chance they _might_have brought Sentinel to justice. Sideswipe alone could not. He was like an unbalanced blade without his twin. And even if they were all alive and here and fighting as a team, did they have any right to execute the mech who led them?

The realization settled dark and heavy in my spark: As the Matrix Bearer, the task of bringing Sentinel to justice fell to me.

_What happened, my Prime?_ I wondered under the cold stars._ You who taught __**me**__ of the right to freedom and peace, where did you go wrong?_

…

In the pale light of dawn, we passed the first of the refugees. We'd been on Earth long enough to read the humans' faces and to recognize devastated and broken souls when we saw them. The deeper we drove into the city, the worse it became. Humans no longer held each other in consolation, instead weeping alone with empty eyes. Eventually even the keening ceased and the living bodies curled up alongside the road were gray-faced and silent.

Sparklings, I'd told Sam in the earliest days of our brother bond. Humans were so _young _– like sparklings on Cybertron – every last one of them. Decepticons had killed even the youngest of our race, but it was with brutal efficiency in an act of war. They didn't _delight _in slaughter the way they did now. The Decepticons didn't even bother trying to encrypt their comm chatter as they herded humans together and toyed with them as a cat does a mouse only to incinerate them. They laughed and joked while the humans screamed and died.

Even though I could feel where he was, could feel that he was stunned but not harmed, I saw Sam in every broken body and pile of charred bones we passed. He was my brother, and he was brother to these humans who had fallen. These were _my_kin.

Sam's numb shock deepened and even _his_courage faltered. Tendrils of despair wove into the bond and, unwilling to stop myself, I reached out, pouring encouragement and determination into his heart. I felt him grasp that determination, draw it deep into himself, but he didn't reach back to me. Was it because he didn't recognize the source of those feelings? If he still thought us dead, then that was possible. Another part of me feared it was because he knew it was me and wanted nothing to do with me after my lies and betrayal. He would be justified, but I would not abandon him again.

Terror, honed sharp and bright by adrenaline, surged in from his end of the bond. Instantly I roared ahead of my fellow Autobots.

/Optimus!/ Ratchet sent, trying to call me back.

/Sam is in danger!/

/Dino, Sideswipe, stay with the convoy/ the medic ordered. He didn't bother trying to rein in Bumblebee who was doing his level best to keep up – and failing.

He did, however, get into an argument with the Wreckers that I ignored as soon as I noticed it. The streets were choked with debris and I transformed, running the last block to turn the corner and see a Decepticon scout ship take aim at Sam.

I never did remember firing that shot. All I remembered was the panic and pure fury I felt seeing him so close to death. The Decepticons' laughing comm chatter continued to cackle in my processors, awakening a cold battle rage. When Sam looked up at me – even more stunned than at our first meeting – I growled, "We will kill them all."

The Wreckers arrived just in time to tear the downed Decepticon limb from limb. It was the type of thing a Prime should not do. It was deeply satisfying, however, to watch the Wreckers do it.

Finally Sam reached out over the bond and the touch of his heart against my spark was tentative, like he didn't believe I was real.

There was no time now to speak with him as a brother; I needed the human Prime. I needed to, in him, give the human race a _choice_. _That_ was where Sentinel had gone astray. "Your leaders will now understand. Decepticons will never leave your planet alone, and we needed them to believe we had gone. For today, in the name of _freedom_, we take the battle to them."

Bumblebee finally caught up with us then, the rest of the Autobots close behind. Even without a bond, the awe and affection between my brother and his guardian was plain to see. When it finally sank in for Sam that we were really – all of us – still alive, amazement crept in. "I saw your ship blow up!"

"The ship? We were never _in_the ship!" Roadbuster exclaimed, and the Wreckers explained in that rough way of theirs exactly how we had survived, adding, "We ain't going nowhere."

"They're surrounding the city to make a fortress," I told them, mostly for Sam's benefit, "so that no one can see what they are up to inside. Our only chance is the element of surprise."

A flicker of understanding crossed the bond as he heard my not-question, the choice before the human race. Autobots would resist Decepticons – that's the way it always had been and always would be. The choice before the human Prime was whether they would help us, give us their allegiance…their trust.

"I think I know where to look," he immediately said, answering both my voiced and unspoken questions.

We would stand together.

…

The first orders I gave in the battle – for Sam and the other humans to wait while we scouted ahead – he promptly contradicted and ultimately ignored.

_Primes are stubborn_, I wryly mused as we rolled out, _and that isn't always a good thing._

Bonds could be useful in battle, but they were also a liability, especially one so weak. Without actual military intelligence being shared, the emotions could be more distracting than helpful. I blocked my bond with Sam enough that I couldn't sense his every feeling but not so much that I couldn't sense where he was.

With Sam and Lennox leading the humans, we worked in surprisingly-effective tandem. In the end, though, it was as I feared. I stood against Sentinel, and by my own hand, justice was done to the traitor. Megatron, too, fell, and that was another brand of justice.

I felt Sam, carried by Bumblebee, draw nearer and opened the bond again. I could tell the moment he came within sight of my severed arm as a pang of anxiety reverberated across the bond.

His worry, though, was laced with shock as he took in the empty shells at my feet. Meeting my gaze, his feelings were so clear I could almost hear the thoughts behind them: Are you okay?

I nodded, sending reassurance back over the bond. _I'll be fine,_ I wished I could tell him. _Or at least, I will be until Ratchet gets a hold of me._

He seemed to understand the sentiment, however, and relief took some of the edge off his worry. Tearing his gaze away from my dripping wound, the human Prime stiffly walked past me. My brother did not look back. Instead, he went in search of Carly.


	4. Calm Between the Storms

Author's note: I'm heading out of town tomorrow to go camping for three days and I have a very narrow window of time to post. The chapter is ready to go, and if I don't put it up now, I won't have a chance again until Wednesday. I'M SO SORRY, but I don't have time to answer reviews tonight. :( Please know that I eagerly read each and every one. Reviews are love from readers and chapters are love from authors. :)

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><p>As expected, Ratchet was furious when he got his hands on me. "Most 'bots have the good sense to put their arms <em>back on <em>after they get cut off!"

"Look more closely at the struts," I calmly told him. Sentinel had pried my arm off, twisting the metal to ensure I wouldn't be able to simply reattach it myself like I could with a clean cut.

He harrumphed and set to work.

My injury and its resulting repair were complicated enough that Ratchet forbade me from transforming for at least 24 hours. As night fell, I found a relatively-undamaged parking garage and stretched out on the top floor, staring up at the stars. It reminded me of the days after the Battle of Giza, when I would lie out on the flight deck of our aircraft carrier at night and talk with Sam. It was then that he first learned the significance of the Matrix of Leadership and of the name of Prime. It was also then that he learned of our bond and came to accept it.

I needed rest, but I didn't power down for a long time. My brother-bond with Sam didn't disappear while he slept and I recharged. If our thoughts were in sync enough, we could meet in a common dream-space. It had become habit to share bond-dreams when we were in close enough proximity, but he hadn't joined me in our dreams the night before the Xantium was destroyed. It had seemed unusual then, but now it was deeply troubling.

The human Prime had fought side-by-side with me today, but we hadn't spoken yet as brothers. Between my repairs, the reunion between Sam and Carly, and his exhaustion, we simply didn't have the time before he found a quiet corner and fell asleep. I knew well that the storms of war left many kinds of devastation in their wake, not all of them physical. Every last mech and femme I'd been clan-bound to had been extinguished and, before the Matrix was restored to us, I had been alone in my spark for millennia. Sam was human and short-lived. I'd always known I would lose him, but the possibility that our kinship could be cut even shorter made my spark ache. How much damage had this battle done to our bond?

Sentinel had called me the bravest of the Autobots, but it took all my courage that night just to power down into recharge.

…

I stood on the end of the aircraft carrier's flight deck, looking into the morning light and the cool breeze rising off the ocean. This was where we usually met in our bond dreams, but I was alone here now. I could have gone elsewhere in my thoughts – reliving memories from Cybertron or planning the changes we would introduce in the Autobot Alliance Act that I was sure the nations of Earth would wish to renew – but I needed to be here even if Sam didn't join me. Healing our bond was my first priority now. He didn't make me wait long, though.

I felt him seconds before I heard him quietly say, "Hey."

"Sam," I greeted him.

He stood beside me, his feelings muted like mine, only a flicker of amusement slipping through. I had a good guess as to what it was about. We were the same stature in these bond dreams, standing eye-to-optic. It was interesting to me but not funny like it was to him.

"So..." he began, then trailed off.

The rift between us loomed large.

"Indeed."

"Your arm's better?"

"Ratchet repaired me, yes. Usually Cybertronian amputations are more a means to slow down one's opponents than to kill them outright. I cut off Starscream's arm in our forest battle, but that didn't impair him for long."

"True," he murmured.

Deciding it was better to begin this conversation now, I cautiously let him feel how pleased I was that he joined me here.

Sam studied me for a moment and then blinked, his head jerking back. Surprise and disbelief flooded the bond. "Really?"

When he continued to stare at me, I said, "I don't understand the question."

He didn't explain, instead rolling his eyes. "Is _that _what the avoiding me and muting the bond is about? Tell me we're not going to go through all this again."

I blinked in my own surprise. "Through all this?"

"Yes," he answered, giving me a mock glare. "All this panicking and freaking out because you're worried I'll break the bond like Megatron did. I thought we moved beyond that a couple of years ago."

My chin jutted out defiantly. "Primes do not 'freak out.'"

He snorted, but there was teasing behind it. "I freak out all the time, or at least that's what Carly says, but she also says it's sexy, so I don't know if she's the best one to ask. And while you're at it, stop putting little quotation marks around my human expressions. I can hear them in your tone of voice and I'm not going anywhere, just like you didn't, so you'd better start expanding your vocabulary."

The warmth of his affection enveloped me – a hug of the heart, he'd called it. Especially after the trials of the last two days, it was a place of precious calm in the midst of the storms of war. He added, "You're going to have to try a lot harder than that to get rid of me."

The unexpected love of my brother made me braver. "I'm sorry, Sam."

More seriously, he answered, "I started it. I didn't let you in when I should have. I just was...really scared that if you knew Soundwave had Carly that you'd do something to let them know and she'd get killed. Looking back, that was pretty stupid. I should have had more faith in you."

I had no answer to that. I was too stunned.

He nudged me with his elbow. "Come on." Turning to face me, he rested his hands on my shoulders. It was an invitation, letting me step out of this shared dream-space and into his own mind and memories.

It was an act of tremendous, undeserved trust. I rested my helm against his forehead.

Abruptly we were on the launch pad at the Kennedy Space Center. I stood before my towering brother with a Decepticon drone on my wrist. Time hung, suspended, while we flew back through human memories to Dylan and Soundwave and Carly. Then we were pulled forward again, to this moment when we had both betrayed each other.

"I know there's a plan," I stuttered in Sam's place, clenching my teeth against the pain. But even worse than the 'con torturing me was the gut-wrenching fear that something bad would happen to Carly or the Autobots because of _me_.

My brother answered, "There is no plan."

I didn't believe that, not for a second, but the words lifted a heavy burden from my soul.

Then our joined minds were racing forward through the Autobot's short flight on the Xantium, the feigned severing of our bond, and the very-human nightmare that followed. My brother was dead, parts scattered on the ocean floor, and I was wandering the cold water, looking for them. It was a graveyard of shipwrecks and Cybertronian corpses and I had to scrounge for the parts. I spent the whole night doing it. I had found almost all of them – one piece was missing. I couldn't bury him without it. My brother wouldn't be at peace unless I could find his whole body. Just one piece, and I could let him go. One piece, but I couldn't figure out which piece it was. He was _hurting_, I could feel it, and if I could just find this _one_mystery piece, he would be okay. And I would be okay, too...

With a flicker of intuition, we shifted perspective, remembering the Autobot's heartbreaking cross-country trek to the moment the Decepticon scout ship was shot down. Again he towered over me – a delusion, a ghost, a miracle. "We will kill them all."

A surge of fierce confidence filled me, and only the fierce part came from him. I could actually do this now. I could save Carly! He told me what he needed in that not-question way of his, and I eagerly jumped into this battle that had become sharply personal a couple of days ago.

After that bird-brain flying 'con tossed me out of Dylan's penthouse and off the building, my brother tightened up on the bond. I assumed it was an Autobot battle-protocol thing. I was sensing a lot more in the way of Prime than brother from him and I realized he was right. We both needed to be soldiers now.

Abruptly we were back on the flight deck of the aircraft carrier, no longer sharing memories. Sam rubbed the temples of his forehead like he was trying to stave off a headache. "Slag, Optimus, why did you _do _that to yourself?"

"Do what?"

"Carry around the weight of the world like that."

My wry amusement rippled over the bond. "Because the weight of _two_worlds – and the life of my brother – were on my shoulders."

He sobered a little. "Yeah, but this…Even for you, Mr. Responsibility, this is over the top. We have one rough spot and you think I'm going to turn 'con and stab my brother in the back?"

I shrugged in a borrowed human gesture. "It would not be the first time."

"No," he corrected softly as my memories settled more clearly in his mind. "That's right, it _was_the first time that someone actually clan-bound to you betrayed you. Megatron broadsided you, but I deceived you for the enemy. Kinda."

Quoting him, I said, "I started it. I called you a mere friend, and I made you believe our bond was broken. Worse, I _knew _you were ensnared by the Decepticons and I walked away."

"And came back!" he retorted. "And in time to kick butt _and_help me rescue Carly."

I realized with a mixture of disappointment and relief that, no matter what I said, he was not going to let me apologize, but only because he felt no apology was necessary. Stubborn Prime.

"Look," he said, "the War is over – you can leave all this baggage behind. Earth's saved, we're both okay, and the worst of the Decepticons' Big Bads are dead..."

I couldn't help the flicker of pain when he described Sentinel and Megatron that way. He was right, but they were my mentor and my brother.

His warm affection flooded the bond again to wrap securely around my spark, enveloping me in the calm amid the tempest. "Sorry. I didn't realize Sentinel turning 'con rattled you so much, though I guess I should have. I just…didn't think of him as _your _Prime. You've always been _the _Prime to me, you know? And Ironhide…" He gave me a half-hearted smile, though grief flickered over the bond. "Seeing things through your optics always gives me a few thousand years more in perspective."

That was the most precious potential of any bond – knowing and being known. "You understand."

"Yeah." Sam pulled us both into his imagination. He was clasping my forearm, the same drone Decepticon watch binding our wrists together. "I understand. And I forgive you – but only if you forgive me."

He was being easier on me than he should have been, but I answered, "Agreed."

He huffed a laugh. "And for the record, I'm not breaking the bond, especially now that I _get _what it costs both you and me, and I'm not just talking about the whole scarring the spark thing. You're _my_only brother, too."

Abruptly he imagined us in the basement of his ancestral home on opposite sides of a foosball table. We had come here before – several times – to simply enjoy each other's company while sharing dreams. Foosball, ping pong, basketball, bowling – it was a novel thing, being my brother's smaller stature and able to enjoy these little human distractions.

"I'd miss out on this. What other Autobot's aft can I kick at foosball?" he lightly joked, gesturing at the game table.

I understood what Sam was doing, and even though it was premature for me to move on, I couldn't resist his invitation to set aside the weight of two worlds. If Earth was safe enough for me to recharge, it was safe enough for me to indulge in this. I also didn't want to pass up this opportunity to heal our bond. My race was ancient compared to my brother's and far more enduring, but we were also a dying race. Humans were young, vibrant with life, and – above all – resilient. I had much to learn from them, especially from this unexpectedly-wise messenger boy of a Prime. The bond I shared with my brother made _me _wiser…and stronger.

Puffing out my chassis plates, I said, "I'd like to see you try."

"Bring it," he taunted with a grin.

I grasped the handles of the foosball paddles, crouching down a little in challenge and drinking in his playful mood to let it lighten my own. "If you insist."

My brother barked out a laugh at that, and he eagerly placed the ball on the table. Somewhere during our "best two out of three" games and before our round of air hockey, the rift between us was bridged. His happiness echoed in my own spark, washing it clean.


End file.
